Thursday

Sep 13, 2018 at 6:16 PMSep 13, 2018 at 6:16 PM

DAYTONA BEACH — The heat just got cranked higher for one of Daytona Beach's hottest corridors for commercial development.

Orlando-based Unicorp National Developments announced plans to develop a 100,000 square feet of retail shops and restaurants on the south side of LPGA Boulevard between Williamson and Clyde Morris boulevards.

The planned 37-acre Williamson Crossing shopping center will be developed next to the RaceTrac convenience store/gas station that opened late last year on the corner of LPGA and Williamson.

The developer also plans to add a 101-acre residential development just north of LPGA Boulevard that will also stretch from Williamson to Clyde Morris.

Its Tomoka Village project will include 233 new homes and 340 apartment units.

Chuck Whittall, president of Unicorp, said his company hopes to break ground on both projects in March 2019 with the goal of the first homes, apartments, retail shops and restaurants completed by early 2020.

"We wanted to take advantage of the growth that was happening in the area," said Whittall.

Unicorp joins a growing number of developers with projects either underway or planned along the increasingly busy stretch of LPGA Boulevard between Interstate 95 and Clyde Morris.

The corridor saw the opening of the 350,000-square-foot Tanger Outlets mall roughly a mile south of LPGA, along the east side of I-95, in November 2016, followed by the completion of the 276-unit Sands Parc apartment community along the east side of Williamson, one block north of LPGA.

Canadian developer North American Development Group is developing the 400,000-square-foot first phase of its planned Tomoka Town Center "power lifestyle" center across the street just east of Tanger.

Tomoka Town Center saw the opening of its first tenant, a Hobby Lobby store, on Aug. 27 and is set to welcome more stores as well as restaurants in the coming months, including Burlington, T.J. Maxx, Five Below, Sports Academy + Outdoors, Blaze Pizza, Ford's Garage and Dave & Buster's.

A 276-unit apartment complex called Tomoka Pointe is also going up on the east side of Tomoka Town Center.

Texas-based Buc-ee's is expected to break ground soon on a 120-pump mega-sized gas station and supermarket-sized convenience store on the northeast quadrant of the I-95/LPGA Boulevard interchange.

Walmart Stores Inc. bought several acres on the southeast quadrant of the I-95/LPGA interchange where it plans to build a Sam's Club membership warehouse store.

Consolidated-Tomoka Land Co., which once owned all the sites for the aforementioned developments, is also under contract to sell a 6-acre site on the northeast corner of LPGA and Williamson boulevards to an undisclosed specialty grocer as well as a 123-acre site just east and north of the planned Buc-ee's location to a developer called O'Connor Capital Partners.

O'Connor plans to develop a mixed-used complex that could include shops, offices and possibly industrial buildings on the property which extends east to Williamson and north to Daytona State College's Advanced Technology College.

On Thursday, Consolidated-Tomoka closed its $6.7 million sale of 21 acres next to the RaceTrac to Unicorp, which also acquired two acres previously owned by another developer that originally planned to build the Shoppes at Williamson Crossing.

Unicorp also has pending deals to acquire two more parcels from Consolidated-Tomoka: $3.8 million for the 13.7-acre wooded site on the southwest corner of Clyde Morris and LPGA that will be part of Shoppes at Williamson Crossing, and $9.5 million for the Tomoka Village residential community that will be just north of the Sands Parc apartments.

The apartments at Tomoka Village will be "very comparable to Sands Parc," both in quality and rental rates, according to Alexia Fonseca, director of leasing for Unicorp.

The two parcels for the future Shoppes at Williamson Crossing are currently divided by a several-acre swath of trees owned by Halifax Health.

Whittall said his company is in talks with Halifax Health about possibly buying a portion of the hospital system's land on that block that would give Shoppes at Williamson Crossing continuous frontage along LPGA Boulevard between Williamson and Clyde Morris.

Unicorp is already in negotiations with several retail and restaurant tenants, according to Whittall. The prospective restaurant tenants include fast-food and coffee chains, he said. The retailers will most likely be of a neighborhood service-nature, such as hair and nail salons, doctor's offices and dental clinics.

Whittall said he anticipates the Shoppes at Williamson Crossing and Tomoka Village projects combined will cost $200 million to develop.

Unicorp will develop the apartments, while it is looking to partner with homebuilders to construct the single-family homes at Tomoka Village, he said.

The intersection of Williamson and LPGA boulevards is already heavily traveled, drawing an average of 55,000 vehicles a day, according to data compiled by Volusia County's traffic engineering department.

Both roads are four-lanes, not counting turn lanes.

Some area residents have expressed concerns about growing traffic along LPGA Boulevard, not just from the commercial projects, but also the big residential communities going up on the west side of I-95, including the 6,600-home Latitude Margaritaville 55-and-older community and ICI Homes' planned 1,200-home Mosaic "full life" community.

[READ MORE: ON Growth prompts LPGA traffic concerns]

Whittall said he is confident the roads surrounding his company's planned Williamson Crossing and Tomoka Village projects will be able to accommodate the increased traffic generated by the various new developments.

John Albright, president and CEO of Consolidated-Tomoka, echoed that assessment.

"There is ample road infrastructure presently in place for these anticipated new developments," Albright wrote in an email.

"In fact, having more neighborhood services and residential opportunities will allow people to live closer to their jobs and have amenities closer to their homes," he said.

Daytona Beach City Commissioner Rob Gilliland said the county is responsible for ensuring that LPGA and Williamson boulevards are sufficient to handle the increased traffic.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged, "It is worrisome. Hopefully the (proposed) half-cent sales tax (increase) will become a reality soon. It's the only viable solution being considered."

Unicorp's portfolio of properties includes two shopping centers in the Orlando area, both anchored by Trader Joe's grocery stores.

While Whittall said, "We'd love to have (a Trader Joe's store) here," he added, "We do not have a Trader Joe's planned at this time" at Shoppes at Williamson Crossing.

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